C4
by somehowunbroken
Summary: 'That incident' mentioned in Hypothetical. Rating for minor language.


"So what you're telling me is that we're stuck here."

Dusty looked around, unimpressed by her surroundings. She was offworld with the most mismatched team she could imagine: herself, Sergeant Stackhouse from AR-6, Dr. Zelenka (who almost never went offworld), and Major Lorne from AR-2. They'd done some sort of weird shuffle of the teams for reasons that Dusty couldn't care less about. She'd had her orders and, like a good soldier, hadn't questioned them when they came about.

She was now reevaluating that obedience. The strange little team was stuck in a hut, an honest-to-God hut, on this dingy planet, being guarded by natives who were brandishing their own weapons at them. They'd been divested of those weapons as soon as they'd been captured, thanks to Stackhouse's big mouth, and locked in the hut, thanks to Dusty's witty comebacks.

So here they sat: offworld, weird team, tiny hut. Dusty scowled as Major Lorne glanced around and smiled slowly.

"Not necessarily."

"So we're _not_ stuck here?" Dusty made a show of looking around. There was only one way in and out of the hut, and there were at least six armed men within four feet of the door. "We look pretty stuck to me."

"Oh ye of little faith," Major Lorne chided. "There's always another way out."

He unzipped his tac vest and slid it off, then reached down and, in one surprising motion, pulled his shirt up and off.

"If one of us is going to flash them, sir, shouldn't it be her?" Stackhouse piped up from the corner. Dusty shot him a glare; so did the Major. Dr. Zelenka snickered in the corner but otherwise kept his thoughts to himself.

"You can stay here," Major Lorne informed him, "if you're going to behave like that." As he spoke, he was unwinding what looked like an extra-long Ace bandage from his torso. The bandage wound down around his hips, and he had to unbutton his pants and wiggle out of them a little before he could get it all the way loose. He pulled out what looked like…

"Is that C4?" Dusty asked from across the hut. She'd decided pretty much the second her CO-for-the-mission had started stripping that she should be as far away from him as she could. "You keep C4 strapped to your ass?"

"You can stay too," Major Lorne threatened her, glancing out the door to make sure he hadn't been noticed. "Everybody clear away from that wall." The rest of the team hurried to do so as the clearly insane Major set up the charge.

"Cover your eyes and ears, ladies and gents," he said, absurdly cheerful, and lit the charge.

The blast was extreme; they had all taken cover behind the room's only furniture – a shoddily constructed desk – and the explosion threw what felt like half the planet's worth of dirt on top of them. There was a lot of yelling from outside, but the team didn't stick around to listen. Instead, they ran for what had been the back of the hut towards the forest.

"You keep C4 strapped to your ass," Dusty repeated as she ran a little behind, keeping Major Lorne covered as he struggled to run and button up his pants at the same time. It didn't really matter; it seemed like the villagers were more concerned with the fact that they were suddenly missing half a hut than they were about missing their prisoners. "You are clearly insane."

"Everyone needs some emergency C4," he said, still weirdly cheerful. Dusty abruptly realized that the stories she'd heard about the Major and loving to blow things up had been more than urban legend.

"What if it goes off down there?"

Major Lorne shrugged. "So far, so good," he said with a smile as the neared the Gate. He stopped as they drew up to it, standing in front of the DHD and crossing his arms until they all looked at him impatiently.

"This isn't going to get around," he said in a warning tone. "We escaped from the hut without blowing it to hell."

"We certainly did not," Dr. Zelenka pointed out, crossing his arms right back at him. "That was hilarious."

"Agreed," Stackhouse joined in. "You're telling me we can't share how we got out?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you," Major Lorne said with a nod.

Dusty shrugged and turned to the other two. "I'm fine with that." All three stared at her: two with incredulity, one with thanks. She smiled as sweetly as she could as she ducked around the Major and dialed the Gate. "You guys really want to admit we were rescued by crotch explosives?"

She heard the laughter and indignant spluttering behind her as she strolled through the Gate, ready to make her report.


End file.
